Free The Wedding of Anna F. by Mylene Dressler Page B

“You’ve been so helpful today, Hannah. I’m really grateful, but I really think I shouldn’t take any more of your—”
    I touch his arm, impulsively, putting him on my good side.
    “Can’t we just go down together now?” Because it’s time. I can hear Maia welcoming my old friends below, none of whom have ever really known me. But this person has. My interviewer. My reporter. My new, old friend. “I feel a bit weak-kneed, all of a sudden. But then again, who wouldn’t, at a moment like this?” I try a laugh.
    He hesitates, and looks away. Considering, as today’s young do, their endless, marvelous options.
    “Okay. Let me get you down the stairs.”
    He picks up his satchel and holds out his elbow to me and allows me to hook my arm around it.
    “Thank you!”
    It does feel so good to lean into a man again. Linked, we go through the door, like a happy couple, he in his dark jeans, me in my silk and my bright red scarf.
    My escort takes hold of the banister firmly, and I hold onto him, with no distance between us at all, and we begin taking the steps carefully, one by one. At the second landing we pause and peer down and I see that almost all of my guests have arrived and that Maia has taken their wrapped gifts away from them and put them on the hall table and handed them flutes of champagne—such a clever, thoughtful girl she is. How lucky am I, childless all my life, to have such fine young people to help me, here at this late date. We begin moving down the stairs again. Smiles of surprise are lifted, along with the glasses—no, they hadn’t expected such a grand entrance from such an old girl—and I can only press my lips together, thinking of what else they do not yet suspect. The wonder, the amazement in store for all of us. The hope.
    I adjust my scarf and pat my helmet of hair hiding the scar at my scalp. He balances me at the bottom, waiting for some cue, some hint of what to do. I turn to see his profile in time to notice, up close, for the first time, the boyish pores stippled with late afternoon whiskers, the downy hair dressing his earlobe, the brow gouged with a tiny scar at the outer corner, like an anchor, a sickle…I’ve never been close enough to see this before… He’s so young, so much younger than that other reporter, whose freckled skin I stroked in the bathwater. I see him take a breath and frown, slightly, seriously, his lips parting, and I know that he is about to speak, to say something—and my heart seizes. From a great distance, hidden, in my closed ear, I hear a girlish voice:
    “Wat zegt de visser?” What says the fisherman?
    But I must not be afraid, I must not be, though I feel nothing but lightness, my body arcing through the air.

Acknowledgments
    This story could not have been written without the kindness and support of many friends and colleagues. Thank you, Heather Jacobs, for being such a wonderful editor, and for allowing Anna to make her first appearance in Big Fiction . To the Carson McCullers Center in Columbus, Georgia, and to Cathy Fussell and Courtney George, warmest thanks for the gift of a fellowship that allowed me to write an early version of this novella, and for so many kindnesses, large and small, ever since. My thanks go out to my friends among the faculty and students at Columbus State University and beyond, especially to Gail Greenblatt; and to my colleagues and students at Guilford College, who continue to be such a source of inspiration to me. Special thanks to Diya Abdo, for the wonder of her friendship and for help with Arabic phrasings. I kiss and thank my mother, Margie Bellamy, for assistance with Dutch phrases. And as always, love and thanks to my husband, Dennis, for patience and for reminding me that marriage is mysterious, strange, beautiful and entirely made-up.